


Dancing with a Ghost

by notcrindy



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sorry About It, i can't stop dabbling in a million universes and grieving through elves, mortal Kravitz, murderer Sazed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 12:01:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13717278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcrindy/pseuds/notcrindy
Summary: don't it beat a slow dance to death?Taako grieves.I document it all, again, because I can't help myself.(Takes place in the universe of "Time Comes Around" by tardigradeschool/mcgonagollygee on Tumblr. read it right now immediately. Roleswap of Taako and Magnus, kind of. Title and lyrics are from "Slow Disco" by St. Vincent.)





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this one is also for all the grievers. i promise i'm not big on suffering without a point.

In the days following Glamour Springs, Taako can’t think.

It’s weird, the way a brain can just shut down like that. The body moves on autopilot, going through weird and useless motions to see to it that his husband’s murderer rots in prison, if not in Hell. It’s fair to say that “Sizzle it Up” is--is dead, and he rids himself of it all. Profiting off of it in any way feels wrong, so he refuses to sell anymore of the t-shirts; posters make him physically ill. He hoards them all away and then decides he can’t stomach the reminders, taking them all to some secluded location and lighting everything the fuck up with a hollow flick of his wrist. _His_ way with fire has been barely anything; it still only takes one spark for the flames to start licking away at his past, and then that’s it.

He keeps one t-shirt only for himself.

It’s Kravitz’s. It smells like him; it hangs off of Taako like comfy pajamas. He’s always gone to such great lengths to make sure that he looks fine and fabulous, but this is almost all he wears for months straight. He worries that the smell will leave; he worries that he’s sapping it, somehow, of everything that ever made his husband beautiful. He should’ve just kept it, maybe, in a box somewhere where he could take it out and hug him and _breathe him in_ and hear his _music,_ goddamnit, but -- it’s too late for that. He changes out of it occasionally, but none of the other clothes matter to him. They’re all pajamas.

He doesn’t leave the motel he’s holed up in for awhile. He’s been there for too long now, but he won’t leave. He won’t _cook,_ either, which is absurd because he knows that if anything’s to blame for Kravitz’s absolutely fucked up demise it’s some sort of crazed fan, former employee, same difference. He _knows_ he didn’t kill Kravitz; he reminds himself constantly of this fact, sometimes multiple times a day. He’ll look in the mirror and he won’t recognize his own face, sans makeup and sans hardly any effort, bags heavy under his eyes. He’ll look and feel so sick, but he reminds himself because Kravitz would want him to. He _didn’t do this;_ it _wasn’t_ his fault. Kravitz wouldn’t want him to think it was his fault, of course not, but--

\--but it kind of was, because he didn’t pick up on red flags with Sazed.

But it kind of was, because Taako has always known how the universe reacts to his happiness. He’s had so little of it in his life and it’s always to be found in things like cooking at his aunt’s house (she’d died and he’d been stuck with his Abuelito shortly after, who’d _hated_ his guts). It’s always to be found in fleeting, hollow gestures; praise of his looks, of his beauty, which he’s gotten since he was too tiny to be getting it, probably. Most of what he’s dared to get attached to since childhood, since the initial heartbreak with Tia, has been material possessions--so it figures that the _next_ time he would dare to get close to someone else, something like _this_ would happen.

No, he reminds himself for Kravitz’s sake, for _justice’s_ sake. Sazed’s face is forever etched into his mind, in a cruel twist of fate; he worries frantically about forgetting the color of Kravitz’s eyes, the tone of his voice, but he remembers everything about that horrible fucker. He won’t ever forget it. He can’t ever forget _that,_ so he has to remind himself so constantly that -- that _he_ didn’t kill Kravitz. That it’s an injustice to think so, to say so, to even _feel_ so.

But he should’ve let Kravitz know, he thinks sometimes, on the especially bad days, that he was cursed. He should have let him know what happens to people who bring him even a sliver of happiness; he should’ve warned him away from him, _pushed_ him away from him the moment Taako started noticing a twinge of joy in his chest around him. In that sense, all of the splashes of cold water to the face won’t fix it. In that sense, nothing can. He’s cursed, and fame was a mistake; without him, without _his_ fame, Kravitz would certainly still be alive.

So no, he can’t cook. It brings him back to another time and place too easily. He’s--he’s _tried_ before, and there have even been instances wherein Taako finds he’s made the dish that felled his husband, or one of his favorites, and then gotten so nauseous he almost couldn’t stand. He’s tried to make just basic shit, too -- scrambled eggs, spaghetti, little nothings. He can’t, so he gives up. So he starts making marketplace runs out of necessity, shrouding his face in scarves and sunglasses and wide hat brims. He buys cereal and yogurt for the most part, subsides mostly on that if he can stomach anything. He can’t always bring himself to leave the bed for long enough. Some of his worst times in the room are eating cereal out of the box, tears running down his face. Some of his _other_ worst times are days at a time without food, staring hollowly at the wall or the ceiling.

It’s horrible, but he denies a service. He doesn’t want other people talking about him; he doesn’t want to ever have to make his mourning public, not ever again. He wants everything they worked for together to wither up and die like Kravitz did on him, and it’s not fair, and it’s _selfish,_ and it’s condemning them both to a legacy of--of nothing, ending on a note like that. But he doesn’t want people he only knows through non-lethal dishes to show up and talk about him, or his performances, or that slight upturn of his mouth whenever Taako said something particularly witty. He doesn’t want anyone else talking about his music, or his presence, or the synergy they had. He wants Kravitz all to _himself,_ and it’s selfish, it’s awful, because Kravitz was a man worth knowing.

The world was better _off_ with him.

But he won’t do it.

Can’t do it.

Letters show up for a little while from various fans, all of them full of encouragement. He reads the first couple and feels a twang of appreciation in his chest, then refuses to read the others. Mail piles up until they stop delivering it. He waits for people to forget like a drowning person strives for one breath of oxygen; he nearly gets recognized a few times and is so startled and disturbed he nearly falls over. When people _do_ recognize him, they’re thoroughly apologetic, because he so obviously doesn’t want to be disturbed (or so obviously _is,_ in any case).

This is the shape of his life without Kravitz. It’s barely anything anymore. It’s hollow, grey, dull. He’s thankful for being an elf, because he doesn’t always have to sleep; he can meditate, but the details haunt him. The music played right before he died; the music played when he was nowhere close. The outfit he wore the day he croaked; the many he hadn’t, which are sitting in a box somewhere (when he gets anxious about the official merch shirt losing its… ... _essence,_ he knows it’s at least still in there). The terrible accents he’d do just because Taako _thought_ they were terrible and it’d make him giggle; the soothing voice he had when Taako had nightmares in the middle of the night. The little things that irked him, like when Kravitz wouldn’t open up about his own shit or was feigning being calm or proper; the little things that irritated him, like certain differences when it came to flavoring.

Classical was boring as sin. He misses it always, though.

When he meditates, it gives his mind free reign to fill itself to the brim with these things. When he dreams, Kravitz is often just _barely_ getting sick in front of a crowd of forty, and he’s powerless to stop it. He spends time angry at Kravitz for leaving him behind; he spends time sobbing at Kravitz and begging, in front of a crowd of unknowing fans. He spends time unaware, blissfully unaware that anything’s happened--though he can _swear_ it has, something isn’t _right,_ and he wakes up from those dreams and feels so betrayed he bursts into unabashed tears.

Sleep sucks. Meditation sucks. He goes through life in a daze.

There’s one particularly irritating journalist for a while. Taako doesn’t know her, couldn’t remember her face if you asked anymore, but she’d been awfully shaken by the ordeal and insists upon checking up with him once every few months for a while. It weirds him out; he hasn’t wanted to talk, and he’s slammed a door in her face repeatedly. She’s been persistent; he’s never seen a single article published by her, and he’s noticed. Eventually, he’s made sure that motel staff escort her away onsight, and warns her that he _will_ pursue some sort of legal action as his entire body trembles.

She stops visiting after that.

He’s lonely; he’s bored. Six years go by and they both crawl at a snail’s pace, which they shouldn’t do for elves, and go by too quick. On one hand, he survives day to day and very slowly without his husband by his side, but on the other, it feels so much like it _just happened._ He’s started, at least, to put his hat back on and try to put a little more effort into his appearance. He still hides his face with ridiculous sunglasses; he still deflects people who recognize him, but he feels the way the world has been continuing without the one thing--the one _person_ that gave him so much love and joy, and he--

He fucking hates it.

He can’t explain why he finally ventures out of the motel room.

He can’t explain why he finds two other people he can--he can tolerate, at least.

It doesn’t matter, he thinks.

Eventually, he’ll doom them too.  
  
Taako is _extra_ careful not to give a shit.


	2. Chapter 1

“This is the last job you’ll ever need to take,” promises the dwarf.

Taako’s hunched over a cider like someone might take it from him, jittery. He hasn’t been to a place like this in  _ so long, _ and the last time he  _ was _ , was probably-- _ fuck. _ He doesn’t want to think about it. Kravitz’s face swims through his mind, a ghost, and he shudders involuntarily. He’s not focusing as much as he should be on this opportunity, which sucks ‘cuz there’s  _ gotta _ be some new way for him to bring in the bucks; he’s trying to forget Kravitz’s drinking preferences, trying to hide his face, trying to seem inconspicuous.

The cider makes it even harder than usual to concentrate. “Mm?”

The dwarf sighs. “Were you even listening to  _ any _ of that?”

“Yes,” Taako promises. “No, I, uh--I am but a simple idiot wizard, uh. I’m--I’m stupid, sorry. Take it from the top?”

This is a deflection. He imagines everyone’s eyes are on him, even though it’s only his party’s. He’s surprised Merle even stopped partying hard enough  _ to _ be listening, but sure enough, even he’s ready to get down to business. His face flushes as he silently berates his memories with Kravitz to  _ wait, _ please--he doesn’t need to think about the last time he was out like this, right before that last show in Glamour--

“Wait a minute, wait a  _ minute, _ ” he slurs slightly, nearly knocking over Magnus’s glass and apologizing thoroughly. “Sorry, Mags. You said, ‘the last job we’ll ever need to take?’”

“That’s… ...exactly what I said,” the dwarf confirms, unamused. “And then I said a bunch of other shit. Seriously, fellas, is this guy okay, or--”

“He’s totally fine, we promise,” Magnus vouches for him, then elbows Taako just slightly. Taako hasn’t known him for very long, but he can already tell the guy is  _ terrible _ at whispering, and cringes when he tries anyway. “Seriously, bud, are you okay? What’s up?”

“Nothing,” he babbles. “Everything. ‘m an idiot. I told you.”

Magnus doesn’t buy it. He hates Magnus not for buying it. He hates this whole place, celebratory and out of step. But he can’t help but keep coming back to the phrase--”the last job you’ll ever need to take,” and it’s ultimately what sells him. He never wants to have to think about scraping by ever again; “Sizzle it Up” is dead and gone, and he either needs to keep moving forward and find another way to rake in the dough, or--

\--or it’s the last job he’ll  _ ever need to take, _ and he’ll die.

Taako thinks about it a lot, dying. He’s an elf; ordinarily, he’d have to crawl through life for even close to something like 900 years without Kravitz. He’s had a lot of time to think about it. Hell, even  _ before _ the incident, he thought about it; there was no way he wouldn’t significantly outlive him anyway, wasn’t supposed to. And as terrible as that thought always is, it brings him comfort to think sometimes that--that hey, humans don’t live long anyway. It brings him solace to think, sometimes, that Kravitz would’ve and could’ve been gone in an eyeblink  _ anyway, _ so it was no real surprise when he  _ was.  _ But maybe with a job dangerous enough, he could hop skip his way through all those years. He isn’t an extremely religious dude; obviously, Merle begs to differ with him on this, but he worshiped a deity called  _ Ohmec  _ or something for a long time just ‘cuz it felt like the thing to do. He doesn’t exactly  _ know _ what’s going to happen to him when he dies, but sometimes--even though he knows Kravitz would be  _ so ashamed of this _ \--he looks forward to it a little, even.

He fantasizes about it sometimes, vaguely. There are those who insist that marrying Kravitz in the way he did  _ guarantees _ them space to chill together in the afterlife. He truthfully has no clue, but honestly--be it for gold or other things he’ll keep quiet, keep to himself--this seems like a good, solid gig.

He feigns a disinterested air, eyes hollow and obscured by sunglasses. “I dunno ‘bout  _ you _ guys,” he says carefully, “but I’m  _ in. _ ”

Later on, Merle takes them both aside. He confides in them that he’s never  _ liked _ his cousin; he’s never trusted ‘im, so if they’re going to do this, they have to stick together and they have to be careful. Magnus is, as usual, all in, ready to defend either of them if need be. Taako barely even cares as he murmurs some hollow words about how he can look out for  _ himself, _ really; it’s no bigs. He doesn’t need Merle wasting time trying to protect what, unbeknownst to him, barely wants to be protected. He has to establish himself as an idiot, as a doofus, as an unlikable  _ bitch _ because he doesn’t want these people to fall into his favor. They’ve already come so close as it is.

“Well, gee, thanks, Taako,” Merle says sarcastically. “Just tryin’ to help.”

“Taako doesn’t  _ need _ your help, okay? Besides, I’m sure it’ll be fine. You’re just being  _ paranoid!! _ ”

He hopes Merle isn’t.

The job doesn’t appear to be  _ too _ dangerous, in theory. They just have to escort some supplies from the town of Neverwinter to the town of Phandalin. It’s like, almost nothing, really. But Taako hasn’t traveled that far and that way in  _ so long. _ His chest aches when they first board the wagon on the way, and he resolves to mostly zone out. He can hear and feel Magnus next to him, big and buff, sharpening his axe. Merle’s at the front of the wagon; he may be old, but the man’s got a way with vehicles, evidently. 

“So,” he says awkwardly, “fighting, huh?”

“Yup,” Magnus answers happily. “That’s my calling.”

Taako can’t relate in the least. Sure, he dabbles in magic enough to tentatively call himself a  _ wizard  _ (transmutation magic, actually--tried to use it in the act with Krav here and there, though the food often spoke for itself), but his true calling had been cooking through and through, and it worked out so poorly for him. He can’t imagine just deciding your whole deal was--was  _ fighting _ people, but he can tell the way that Magnus talks about it he’s really passionate.

“Oh, yeah?” He doesn’t want to get invested in these people; he doesn’t want to care. Magnus in particular has a way about him like an altogether too sincere puppy, and it tugs  _ horribly _ at Taako’s heartstrings in the most irritating way possible. So he still kind of zones out, pretends he isn’t too interested in the responses. “How does someone decide on devoting their life to some shit like  _ that, _ anyway? Fighting. Too much hassle.” He leans back, pulls the brim slightly over his eyes, and waves his hand nonchalantly.

“Mm, just kinda somethin’ that found me, I guess!” He can feel Magnus shrug. “Grew up around a lot of fighters, lumberjacks, carpenters. That kinda thing. Just seemed like sorta the natural thing to do. What about you? Why’re you a wizard?”

“Because my cooking is shit,” he answers simply.

There’s a lump in his throat.

“Fair enough,” says Magnus. 

He doesn’t ask any more uncomfortable questions.

It continues like this for awhile, and it’s pretty boring. Taako meditates a little just so he can be rested enough for the job, but he absolutely does  _ not _ allow Kravitz to cross his mind. He tries so hard to just detach and not think of anything. Watches the other two pull to the side of the road and eat a few times; Mags offers him an apple, and Taako scoffs and declines. He hasn’t eaten the whole journey, though. Eventually, they’re both wise to this.

“Taako, I don’t wanna pretend like I know your business,” Merle starts.

“Then don’t,” Taako chirrups, forcing joy.

“But you gotta eat  _ something, _ pal. Here, have some bread or something. On me.”

When he turns it down again, Merle sighs heavily, pinching the bridge of his nose and rubbing his temples. “Great,” he mumbles to Magnus, taking his place again at the front of the wagon, “our wizard’s gonna starve to death.”

Not a bad way to go.

When Magnus spots dead horses up ahead, Taako thinks he might go another way first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well that concludes this chapter!!!! i'm... v sleep-deprived and going out of town today, but i hope it's decent. i just wanted to get a little more up and out there. thx. love u all. i'm going back to sleep. LMAO.

**Author's Note:**

> hi, so... um, why do people keep writing amazing things about Kravitz dying?? i guess this is a thing now. thank you so much for Sophie for being so inspiring in the first place, and for the amazing people at the TAZ Writers Discord for encouraging me and reassuring me that my ideas aren't stupid. i will def be back with more. this one's a doozy.


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